Akame was a Japanese information broker who operated the Akame Network in Dotonbori, Osaka during the 2010s and 2020s. A former singer, she cultivated a network of homeless informants who provided her with intelligence, and, in 2019, she partnered with Kazuma Kiryu to fight crime in the city.
Biography[]
Akame in 2019
Akame was born in the Kansai region of Japan, and she moved to Osaka's Dotonbori entertainment district with the dream of becoming a singer. She performed songs on the streets, uploaded videos online, and tried selling CDs to strangers while working a part-time job. While her ambitions went unrecognized for several years, she befriended a group of homeless people who liked her music and proclaimed that they would bring her to the top. They distributed her CDs and helped her acquire a greater following, causing a hotel executive to offer her a residency at his new hotel. That hotel project never came through, as the executive was defrauded by an Omi Alliance front company and the "New Osaka Castle" hotel instead found its way onto the deck of a cargo ship used by Homare Nishitani III as a floating entertainment district nicknamed "the Castle." Although her dream of becoming a singer was shattered, she still maintained her special bond with the homeless and set up the Akame Network at a warehouse formerly operated by the Odyssey cabaret club. She took care of Osaka's homeless population in exchange for their service as informants for her information brokerage agency. At the same time, she became reluctant business partners with the Omi, who left her operations unhindered in exchange for her escorting "Castle" invitees to the ship.
Akame flying Kiryu to "the Castle"
In 2019, the Watase-gumi patriarch Yuki Tsuruno had Kazuma Kiryu present a red tiger keychain to Akame, telling him that she could help him find his kidnapped associate Kihei Hanawa. Instead, Kiryu realized that Akame was oblivious about Hanawa and was instead supposed to take him to the Castle. Before she did, however, she enlisted Kiryu's help with building her network, breaking up the Kyokuso-gumi's welfare theft network, and helping the citizens of Osaka. She would go on to ferry Kiryu to and from the Castle aboard her helicopter, while Kiryu agreed to help her with her network.
Akame drinking with Kiryu
The two gradually came to trust each other, with Akame sharing her background with Kiryu and even unsuccessfully flirting with him, although Kiryu never revealed his true identity to her, instead going by her Daidoji Faction pseudonym "Joryu". Akame also introduced Kiryu to her arms dealer associate Akira Mizorogi to better prepare him for his coliseum battles, and, after Mizorogi was assaulted by the Kyokuso-gumi out of vengeance for Akame and Kiryu's role in destroying their welfare theft racket, Akame persuaded Kiryu to defeat the Kyokuso Family and avenge their friend's injuries.
When Kiryu set out to help Masaru Watase oversee the dissolution of the Omi and the Tojo-kai in the summer of 2019, Akame joined the freed Hanawa in saving Kiryu and his friends by striking Homare Nishitani III with a car and taking Kiryu, Watase, and Tsuruno to Omi headquarters for the dissolution. Akame persuaded Kiryu to get back to helping her network after he was done with the dissolution, and the two went on to destroy Dotonbori's color gangs and fight other dangerous criminals.